Medical Child Abuse - A Guideline to Detecting this Particular Form of Child Maltreatment

The term Medical Child Abuse (MCA) describes a form of child abuse in which the medical system is "abused" by carrying out unnecessary medical procedures on a child. This abuse of the medical system occurs through misrepresentation, non-disclosure, fabrication, misinterpretation or active causation of symptoms by a parent. In this article, the construct ofmedical child abuse is defined and predisposing and motivational factors are examined. It also provides an overview of terms that are used synonymously or comparably in the literature and discusses the connection between MCA and Munchausen-by-proxy-syndrome. The core of the article is the presentation of an internal guideline, which was created by the interdisciplinary working group on MCA of the Clinics for Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, the Child Protection Outpatient Clinic and the Social Services at the Charite. It also outlines possible interventions.